Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Giant Robots Breaking Things


A Battletech tide has been swelling at the FLGS.  Sporadic talk and pick-up games morphed into BattleTech Night last Saturday in which 11 robot jox showed up to best each other in mechanized combat.

It was fun.

The Boy was introduced to the game through a marathon 16 hour Battletech king of the hill scenario at NTRPGCon near the beginning of summer.  It was hard to drag him from the table to go play the other games I had scheduled us for.  Literally.  His fingers dug into the table like claws as I tugged at this legs.

So, when my son saw the Battletech Introductory Box Set at our FLGS, Roll2Play, his eyes got really big. The price tag was a little costly for him, but his birthday was coming up and I suggested that we try the free Battletech Quick-Start Rules before he made a final decision.

He loved it.  Mopping the floor with me and my mechs probably didn't hurt, either.  So, for his birthday, along with a multitude of Lord of the Rings Legos and an bonafide actual real archery set, The Boy became the proud owner of the 31st century.

Hunchback: The Boy's Favorite Mech
After reading (okay, skimming) through the rules, we went back to the game shop to sit down and play.  People surrounded us with big eyes and some joined in our game of mechanical destruction.  It's funny that people had the same reaction and interest down at the comic book shop back in 1987 when I opened my first Battletech game box.

All in all, the rules haven't changed much in 25 years.  A few tweaks here and there, but nothing major, despite the game changing ownership and having various distributors over it's lifetime. What has changed drastically is the organization and presentation.  Where before you had separate, and sometimes disjointed, rulesets for theaters of operation (air, land, space, etc,) now you have things organized along rules complexity that build on one another.

The levels are:

  • Quick-Start
  • Introductory
  • Standard
  • Advanced

Quick-Start is the simplified version - free and easy to learn given an afternoon.  The Introductory Rules come in a $60 box that also contains the Quick-Start rules, a background book on the setting, a book of mech sheets, 26 plastic models (no chit,) and two thick, double-sided maps that are much, much nicer than the originals.  There are probably more things in that box that I am forgetting.

Really, the Intro Box has everything you need to bust giant robot heads for a long time.  There are extra books you can get that go with the intro box - scenarios and whatnot - extra maps - minis - all that jazz.

Eventually I did grab the core standard rules rulebook, Total Warfare.  It really just adds more complex maneuvers and things, as well as adding aerial and space combat.  It's what they use for the 'official' competitions and such.  Pretty nifty, but it may be a year before The Boy ever gets up to that level of complexity.

The advanced stuff gets into waging wars across star systems.  Again, nifty, but very far removed from the Boy's current interests in having giant robots explode in a shower of shrapnel.

There is, however, a piece that I'm interested in beyond the battle bot bash jamboree.  Remember MechWarrior?  Battletech's RPG?  Well, back in the day it really never took off with me and my friends.  But today, I have a different mindset and attitude.  I think i could pull off running a BattleTech RPG.  They call the RPG these days A Time of War.  There is even a quick-start set for it here.  I've got some interest players already.  So who knows?

The guy who is running the Battletech Nights games has some ideas for organizing competitions, having people be from different houses, etc.  Good for robot battles, but not so good for an organized group of PCs.  But the RPG and the wargame don't have to match in continuity.

So, whatever the case - The Boy is now a die-hard Battletech fan and will be spending an inordinate amount of time at eh FLGS blowing stuff up.  And me?  I'll be right there next to him - most likely getting blown up by him and his unstoppable HBK-4G Hunchback.

- Ark

Thursday, August 9, 2012

Picking Up the Pieces

The bout of pneumonia I recently had was kind of like a reboot - physically and mentally.  I had been feeling really frazzled, and was going to use my vacation as a time to reflect, meditate, have fun, recharge, and just basically figure out what the hell was wrong and get on a better track.

Three weeks of stabbing lung pain, hallucinations, and a seething, unexplained anger later, I was finally recovering slowly.  But in some ways, I felt better than I did before I left for vacation.  All of those little projects, those plans, those things I do on a regular basis - I just tossed them aside - not just put on the back burner - but cancelled indefinitely in my mind.

That's one heck of a load off.

I've been mentally focusing on the core things - the really important things - family and such - and putting the other things into their proper perspective.  It's been a pretty freeing exercise.

I've been adding things slowly back.  Simple, small things.  Reading Tolkien, for instance.  The pneumonia interrupted my jaunt through Middle Earth.

Letting my mind run free in the lands of J. R. R. Tolkien has been great.  No expectations - no projects - no end result.  Just getting to know the paths of the Shire again, so to speak.  Very nice.

Then I look at gaming.  Either DMing or playing - it takes a lot of work and effort.  I miss it and my gaming group greatly - but I wonder when I'll be ready to put it back into my repertoire   I mean, seriously - I went up to the game store last weekend and played an hour and a half of card games.  Those 90 minutes completely wiped me out - mentally and physically.  How am I supposed to do a 4 to 6 hour role playing session?

It worries me.  I feel old.

Well, enough staring into my navel.  How about something positive?  Drawing had been frustrating me, so I remembered to do some exercises that have helped out a lot in the past.  It's called gesture drawing, in which you basically give yourself between 30 seconds and 2 minutes to capture a pose.  I've been doing it a lot recently, and am pretty happy with the results.

Below are the last three gesture drawing I've done - each at the two minute mark, and I think they are the best ones I've ever completed.  Okay, yeah, there are some proportion issues - but that's not what's important in this kind of exercise.  We're looking for movement, action, and direction - all done as quickly as possible.

Hmm - maybe I just need the equivalent of D&D rehab.  I'll just sit here and roll dice for a while and see if I can strengthen my crit muscle.  ;)
 



- Ark

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Roads Go Ever Ever On

Before our vacation, The Boy and I started listening to the audio versions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, narrated by Rob Inglis.  Having more time than I typically do, The Boy raced ahead of me in the narrative, but would gladly go back with me and listen at my slow-poke pace.

Unexpectedly, one day, The Boy sat down beside me and said, "Do you know what my favorite part of the Lord of the Rings books is?"

I thought for a moment, imagining battles in The Hobbit and the other books, wondering.  Could it be the spiders is Mirkwood, or maybe Bard and Smaug?  Perhaps the fights in Moria, at Helm's Deep, or Minas Tirith?  Tolkein was typically more skimpy on descriptions of warfare than Jackson's vivid interpretations, so it was hard for me to pinpoint something in the books themselves that would rate high on The Boy's Awesome-o-meter.

"I don't know.  What is your favoirte part?" I smiled.

"The songs," he said.

It took me a second to process that.  He meant the poems.  Well, at least what I called poems - as I was introduced to them as 'spoken' cadences in my head.  But yes, they were indeed songs, as the narrator Rob Inglis reminded us by actually singing them.

Upon the realization of what The Boy meant, I was rather overwhelmed with emotion.  I had been blindsided.  As a kid, I had dug through those books are read those songs over and over.  I even sat down and wrote my own after hearing the songs in the cartoons.  I turned my head and wiped the tears from my eyes.

"What's wrong," my son asked.

"Absolutely nothing," I said, clearing my throat and weakly smiling.  "I like the songs too."

"You know what my very favorite song is?" he asked.

I shrugged.  It was safer to shrug at that point, since I was still blinking away moisture.

"Roads Go Ever Ever On," he smiled widely.

I just about lost it.  Only through an iron will did I not just sit there and sob.

"That's a good one," I squeaked.

Something about Tolkein's works get me - deep down.  I heavily identified with Frodo and his pains and travails as a child.  Tears still fall - either in the books or Peter Jackson's movie.  That's probably why I like to watch the DVDs in the dark.

Listening to the books, I'm amazed at how - absent - the songs are from the movies.  Jackson still provides the emotional context via images and the soundtrack.  But really, the songs are the soul of the books.  The fact that my son understands that at some level - while not surprising when I think about it - is still very comforting.

- Ark


Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.

Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.

- The Hobbit

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Bedtop Wargaming


I'm still slowly recovering from the pneumonia that I contracted three weeks ago.  It's been a doozy.  At some point I got laryngitis as well, and my voice still sounds like one of those anti-smoking tracheotomy commercials.

One of the more interesting points of my pneumonia has been the hallucinations.  At first I thought they were dreams, but then I noticed I was awake when they were occurring.  Kind of unsettling at first, but after you get used to it - it's just kind of like free cable TV.

The most vivid hallucination was when I was trying to get comfortable in bed and one of the cats was trying to make herself comfortable on my chest.  Known fact: cats will sense when their owners are about to die and try to help them die more quickly.

So, at some point my chest became The Lonely Mountain and the cat became Smaug the Dragon.  You know, like cats are apt to do.  From somewhere down near my toe, Bard the Bowman and King Tranduil of Mirkword began to march towards my chest, war banners unfurled.  I think the cat morphed into Thorin at some point and hurled curses at the men and elves.

Then from a crumpled up comforter at the bottom of my bed, Dain began to march towards my chest.  I had no idea that my black and green comforter with a picture of Yoda on it was indeed the Iron Hills, but you know, stranger things have happened.

As I was trying to get Smaug/Thorin off my chest, the Goblins raced down my precariously placed pillows and attacked the gathered host.  There was a horrible battle, with tremendous coughing up of phlegm and cat scratches.  Then there were Eagles and Beorn showed up in bear form and Bilbo go knocked unconscious and everything got really confused and hazy.

What was particularly odd about the whole thing is that I could see each army very vividly - from a high vantage point with binoculars.  The battleground, however, remained my sheets, comforters, and pillows.  No other imagery covered those up, so it looked like some sort of Lilliputian war game on my bedtop.  Very odd.

Strangely enough, it harkens back to when I was ten - about half a year before I discovered D&D.  I had been reading the LotR books when I was hit by one heck of a flu or cold of something.  I remember that my mother was very concerned about my temperature being so high, and she'd check on me and ask me questions to determine how close I was to reality - like where I was and such.

At one point, my mother popped her head in the bedroom and asked who I was.  I remember very clearly that I didn't have the foggiest idea who the hell I was.  I just couldn't remember.  Then suddenly a named popped in my head.  I didn't really think it was my name, but since it was the only name I could remember, I figured it would do.

"Gandalf," I told my mother. "My name is Gandalf."

A brief look of concern crossed her face, to be quickly replaced by rolling eyes and a 'you smart ass' stare.

I shrugged and smiled.  I figured that if I told her I really had no idea what my name was, she'd get all upset and keep me awake - and what I really wanted to do was just to sleep.  So, I let her think I was a smart-ass (which was accurate, actually,) and got back to sleep.

It's funny how much of Tolkein seems to be etched on my subconscious.  I suppose I should warn the nurses at the old folks' home when I arrive.  My dementia should be pretty predictable.

- Ark

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Screw Me, Vacation

First day at beach nice.  Then cloudy.  Then rainy.  Then monsoon.  The flooding outside condo.  Then waves of mosquitoes. My bites had bites. Got horribly sick.  Then the flying ants.  An alligator was somewhere in there.  Left early.  Shit my pants in a convenience store.  Not convenient.  Thought it was a fart.

Been sick for 7 days straight.  Not getting betting.  Prognosis unknown.  Pneumonia maybe.  Must have pain meds to get out of bed.  Dunno when will be well.  Everyone else healthy.  Vacation over tomorrow.

No blog features for a while.  Must cancel all games I run indefinitely.  Players please spread the word.  Will get back in touch when I have the good sense to stop myself from letting the entire world know I shit my pants.

Sense of humor still intact.

- Ark


Thursday, July 5, 2012

Screw Ya'll, I'm on Vacation!

Margaritaville, Cancún, 2007 - Back when I still used death sticks.

I'm off to the Texas coast.  See ya'll week after next!  Yee-haw!

- Ark

PS - It's a metaphorical 'screw ya'll,' you know - in a nice way. ;)


Craig Morgan - Redneck Yacht Club

Knee Deep - Zac Brown Band

Zac Brown Band - Toes

Jimmy Buffett - Cheeseburger In Paradise

Jimmy Buffett - MargaritaVille

Kenny Chesney - Summertime

Kenny Chesney - No Shoes, No Shirt, No Problems


Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Stars Without Number: A Whirlwind Tour of the Last Few Months


I've been horrible at updating readers on the progress of the intrepid crew of the Fat Tuesday.  I'll present a quick summation and bring you close to present time.  Hold your questions till the end of the lecture.

While exploring systems behind the 'Methan Veil', the PCs found a lost planet with medieval level technology named Normandie.  An apparently non-damaged, but not operating, Jump Gate was in orbit, which interested them quite a bit, but they decided to go scout the planet itself at first.

They quickly found a large land-war with six legged reptile horses and knights and shit going on, picked sides, and used their armed spacecraft, a grav tank, and a floating motorcycle to turn the tide and win the war. Well, actually, the Boy popped the enemy king with a sniper rifle from like two miles away and ended the war before it began, but the PCs had to have some fun now, didn't they?  It would have been a complete slaughter fest, but the enemy had teleport ninjas that crashed their spacecraft upside down in a forest full of pine, which promptly caught on fire from the heat of the engines.

Eventually they patched their ship back up and left, but not without the King granting the players each 50 acres of land, peasants to farm the land, and giving Captain Goodnight two squires, a handmaiden, and his youngest daughter's hand in marriage.  Surprisingly, Captain Goodnight got hitched to Princess Evangelyne, who only spoke archaic French, but was a wiz at heraldry, the abacus, and 13th century encryption techniques.

They also fought an 1/8th of a mile wide crazy AI, rescued ancient German engineers from a decaying Battleship, and caused the nuclear annihilation of a medieval city, but that is neither here nor there.

So, the PCs hopped back to Metha and traded their information on the Jump Gate, as well as a map to every jump gate in the known galaxy, and even an entire library of engineering documents on how to recreate much of the lost technological wonders of humanity, to the crazy alien Methans.  I'm still wondering about that, and the campaign ramifications are going to be horrendous.  I mean, um, wonderful.  For me.  The evil GM.

They traded all of that for enough money to replace their aged, broken Patrol Scout class vessel for a brand new Frigate level ship.  But they didn't want to get thr new ship from the Methans.  No sir.  They look upon the Methans (rightly so,) as the Tinker Gnomes of the galaxy - only crazier.

So, they went to the nearest human planet with a high-tech ship yard - the bustling planet of White Chapel.  For six months the crew has been putzing around the planet,  attending parties, throwing parties, getting throw in jail, clearing out the occasional genetics laboratory complex 500 miles underground full of 30 feet high, eight legged wolf mutants and horses without heads whose entire bodies are plasma cannons, etc.  Captain Goodnight's Princess wife has been behaving like a princess, draining him of as much wealth as possible on dresses and university mind implant training.  AR-50, the bio-infiltration robot threw a 30,000 credit rave, which caused so much damage that it took 270,000 credits worth of lawyer fees and city fines to get him out of jail.  And so on.

So there we are, with the crew about to get their big, bad new ship, and then the next thing happened.  I'll tell you about all the problems they had later. :)

- Ark

Monday, July 2, 2012

Jealous Much?


Yeah, I am.  Jealous, that is.

This is an after-pic from the 2012 NTRPGCon Charity Game in which The Boy got to participate.  I'm not sure of the exact source of this picture - I just stumbled across it on my hard drive.  I probably rudely harvested it from someone else.  Shame on me.

Anyway, from Right to Left: Jim Ward, THE BOY, Steve Winter, Nogrod the High Bidder, Jennell Jaquays, Frank Mentzer, Tim Kask, Sandy Petersen, and Mr. Uhhh I. Dunno Sorry.

- Ark

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Hobbit Doodles

The Boy and I have been listening to The Hobbit on audiobook this last week.  Audiobooks are nice since they keep my hands and eyes free - so I can doodle and take notes.  It's been probably thirty years since I read The Hobbit, and I am amazed about what I've forgotten.  I had no recollection of The Dungeon of the Necromancer, the Dwarves casting spells to hide their loot, or the Wood Elf tribes never having 'went to fairy' in their ancient past, thus not being as wise and magical as their high elf cousins.  Funny how that works.

Anyway, below are some horrific doodles and chicken-scratch notes.  Enjoy if you can.

- Ark








Saturday, June 30, 2012

Schrödinger’s Ferrit: Character Death and The Boy


The last three gaming sessions have been chock-full of character death. Kaye, on of our players, has been the recipient of most of the death, losing three characters in the last three game sessions.

He lost a 1st level half-orc fighter in the Labyrinth Lord game by charging into a pack of ten orcs. His 7th level bio-espionage robot was crushed by falling debris in Stars Without Numbers. Then a failsafe installed by his creators, the alien Methans, kicked in, creating a micro-black hole which wiped out a city block. Then in Spelljammer, his mil-wiz-black-ops spellsword maic-user fighter hybrid thing was gunned down by a squad of mind-flayer controlled, arquebus wielding, hippopotamus headed Giff.

Kaye lost three characters in eight days. Interestingly, he bounced back quickly and remained rather chipper.

In the same time frame, The Boy lost one character. He did not remain chipper.

I've been running a group of players through B1: In Search of the Unknown at the FLGS. It's a continuation of the Labyrinth Lord game I was running last year. The Boy was playing his favorite character - Ferrit the halfling thief.

So, Ferrit and the crew were running from the band of orcs who had sliced up Kaye's half-orc into tiny little pieces. Since you don't have to outrun the bear, you just have to outrun your friends, I asked about the characters' encumbrance. The rest of the characters were carrying little-to-nothing, as they had been newly created. But come to find out, Ferrit was laden with about three donkey's worth of stuff.

Ferrit was the last in line during the mad dash to the entrance of the dungeon. The orcs threw their clubs, hitting the halfling in the back. He kept on running, but they would be on him unless he loosened his load.

So, he began to toss stuff aside. The heaviest thing he had was his huge mass of coins - which he refused to part with. But he began throwing everything else.

The party suggested - strongly - that he get rid of his cash. He refused; instead letting go of his Morlock spears.

"How many Morlock spears do you have?" I asked.

"Nineteen," he said.

So, now the angry orcs were armed with spears. They rained death down on Ferrit, knocking him down into negative territory and bleeding out. The rest of the party raced on, got out of the dungeon, spiked the front door, and ran back to the fort.

I decided that it was not the time, quite yet, to tell The Boy that if he would have dumped the gold out behind him, the orcs would have stopped to pick it up.

My son was angry. Very angry. Ferrit the Halfling was his favorite character ever, and he was not taking it well.

I talked to him about it on the drive home, but you know, there is nothing to beneficial to say in these circumstances. When we got home, he broke down emotionally. He wanted Ferrit back.

"Ferrit wasn't dead when we last saw him. He was still bleeding. He could have survived. The orcs could have patched him up."

"I'm sorry," I shook my head, "The orcs were interested in the rest of the party."

"I know - I'll roll up a new character and call him Ferrit!" he said.

Now that is completely against my own style of playing. A character in the ground is a character in the ground. But he is not me, so there was little I could say. I nodded, "Sure."

"But," his faced dropped, "It's not the same Ferrit."

I scrunched up my lips and thought for a second.

"You know what?" I looked at The Boy. "As a DM in this case, I am primarily interested in mechanics."

He looked at me like I was speaking Orcish.

"The numbers. The numbers that make up this character sheet here. This numbers here died today. This character sheet is finished. That is the mechanics of it. The numbers died."

He looked at me blankly.

"Whatever Ferrit is - the spirit - the idea of Ferrit - he still lives on in your heart."

"I don't want him just in my heart."

I smiled. "Like I said, I am primarily interested in the mechanics here. The character sheet died. If you want to make a new character and call it Ferrit, then that is okay. If you want to make up a story about how Ferrit somehow survived the dungeon and crawled back to the fort - that is okay too. Remember, he doesn't have the same stats. He was 4th level and is now 1st level. He lost everything. He would have gone through something horrible that reduced his physical abilities and changed his very being."

The boy smiled.

"And remember, if he dies again, and he dies in front of people, this type of story really doesn't work. He went below ten hit points while no one was watching, so he's like Schrödinger’s cat. Ferrit's quantum state was uncertain."

He smiled again. He got the reference. He’s an eleven year old addicted to the Science Channel. "I think I can live with that," The Boy said.

So - Ferrit will be back. He's a lot weaker than he used to be. His body is covered in scars. He doesn't even remember how to be a thief anymore. He just knows how to be a fighter, since The Boy shose a new class for him. But, Ferrit is back.

And hey, I get to retain my Kind, Compassionate Dad Card and my Asshole DM Card - at the same time.  Talk about quantum states.

- Ark

Thursday, June 28, 2012

Dungeonspiration: The Garden Monster


Sometimes the backyard garden spawns monstrosities fit only for inspiring a game of Dungeons and Dragons.  Pictured here is a freakish carrot we pulled out of the ground today.

Do me a favor.  Please post a caption to the image above.  It needs a good caption.  Thanks. :)

(Hirst walls by me, mini painted by The Boy, carrot by the grace of God.)

- Ark

Sunday, June 24, 2012

Glacia Facia


I'm still working on the Glacia Cover, slowly but surely.  Here is here face so far.  Not bad looking for a half-yeti barbarian ice queen.

In Crazy-Ass Tim's 2e Spelljammer game, I came up with the idea that Glacia's helf-yeti tribe abhors the undead.  To combat undeadness, the members of the tribe eat anything they kill - thus ending the problem before it begins.  This usually means that Glacia is normally coated in blood and guts, very full, and looked upon by everyone in a 50 mile radius with disgust and revulsion.

Glacia's travelling companions, wanting to impress the military leadership of an outpost, tricked Glacia into taking a bath - the first bath of her life.  She was not amused - swearing fiery vengeance upon everyone who was armed with a bar of soap during the violent coup de scrub.

- Ark

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Where is Chaotic Lame on the Chart?


The Demon Lord Soulvex is . . . well, let's just say he is a very challenged individual.   Understanding that, in these parts, being a Demon Lord is largely a hereditary position, may explain a lot.  Still, he has a legacy to live up to, so he tries.  Well, not really, now that I think about it.  Yelling at dogs doesn't really count.

- Ark

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Friendly Local Game Store: Roll2Play

Yesterday was the soft opening of Roll2Play, a new game store within comfortable cycling distance from my house.  Roll2Play has been an online store for a while, but the owner, Tiffany Franzoni, finally realized her dream of going brick and mortar.  She's a vocal and active advocate of gaming and spends lots of time at conventions around the state.

Roll2Play isn't just some hole in the wall.  Tiffany Franzoni has made her store into something quite wonderful, jam-packed with games and done up with natural wood displays, tables, and chairs.  It's equal parts store and gamer hangout, and the vibe is - well - it just feels like home when you walk in.  Board games are available to play at any time, and heck, there is even a setup for mini painting.

So me, The Boy, and a couple of friends stopped by to support the 'Amazing Tiffany' and her staff last night.  I brought Labyrinth Lord and a copy of In Search of the Unknown just in case we felt like playing some D&D.  Well, we plopped down at a table, and within no time, gamer gravity took effect and we had a D&D  game of 8 people going - some of the people I had never met before and who had never played an old school RPG.

You know, for a long time, I had this dream of running an open-type rpg - where people could just wander in and start playing an rpg I was running.  Other games store were . . . okay . . . but nothing ever clicked like I saw it in my head.  My vision was very similar to the way I heard Tim Kask describe game nights at Gary Gygax' house in the early years.  Well, last night felt exactly like that. Well, sans Gary Gygax.

So, looks like my new home is Roll2Play, where I'll be slaughtering countless people I've just met.  And  playing some boardgames too.  Tiffany has stacks of them just sitting there waiting to be played on her 'free to play' shelf.  Space Hulk and Dragon Inn were just sitting there, beckoning to me.

Excuse me.  The drool on my chin is unsightly - I know.  But I just can't help it.

:)

- Ark

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Dungeonspiration: Virgil Finlay

At this year's NTRPGCON, I had the good fortune to sit down with Diesel LaForce and discuss art.  As he was digging through a box of his his Deities and Demigods remakes to show me, I began to grill him on his pen and ink technique.  After describing his approach, Diesel began to talk of his influences - one of the biggest being Virgil Finlay.

Finlay was an illustrator for pulp magazines back in their heyday.  Diesel was particularly impressed with the stippling and cross-hatching techniques that Finlay did in his works.  I hadn't heard of the artist, so looked him up after I got back home.  Well, of course I had seen Finlay's work - I just didn't know who he was.  And Finlay's art - yeah - wow.

Here is a brief sampling:

Strange Compulsion

Roads Claus Rescue Serinna

Call Him Demon

The Sheeted Dead
On  the Edge of the Galaxy

I know Virgil Finlay's work definitely inspires me.  Not only to improve my drawing abilities, but to run games in settings that spring to mind when viewing Finlay's work.  Check out Virgil Finlay on the various search engines.  His stuff is out there, all over the place.

Enjoy.

-Ark

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Who wins? Mearls or Gygax?


Okay, that title may start people beating each other senseless with clubs - but let me 'splain.  Yesterday, I detailed my group's experience with the D&D Next Playtest.  To sum up, while I had issues with some of the fiddly bits, the players liked it so much they wanted to continue through the Caves of Chaos in future sessions.

My initial thought was, well, Mike Mearls pulled it off and developed a decent game.  But then I got to thinking.  The adventure we were actually playing was Keep on the Borderlands - that's Gary Gygax's baby.  All the WOTC team did was to stitch together a ruleset where you could play through the Cave of Chaos properly - something that Gygax and Arneson and Holmes and Moldvay and Cook and Mentzer already did years ago - in four (or more?) different versions.

Of course, you could say it was the DM and the players - but let's keep us out of it for now.

So there probably is no real answer here, but it's fun to think about.  Mearls or Gygax?  Is it the ruleset or the adventure? Both or neither?

Anyway, I'll let ya'll duke it out, if you are so inclined. :)

- Ark

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

From 5e to Oe and Back Again

5e Playtest - well, as much as I can show you legally.
When the URUTSK game didn't make at NTRPGCON on Thursday night, one of the staff members suggested we join in one of the other games, or perhaps one of us could start a pick-up game.

I looked around and said:

"Hey, I've got D&D Next in the trunk of my car."

I tried to keep a straight face, but failed. The statement was met with raucous laughter. You probably had to be there.

I said it as a joke, but I also said it to gauge the reaction to 5e at the Con. Most of the people I talked to had no interest in Fifth Edition D&D. Well, many had signed up for the playtest, but the interest waned there, and they ignored the pdf package when it was released. There were some, though, who actually participated. Interestingly enough, they universally liked it.

That's not scientific polling or anything, but it is food for thought.

I've run 5e twice. The first was a 'meet and greet' with the rules. I ran The Boy through a dungeon that I made up on the fly so I could get the mechanics down before rolling out the playtest proper. If I can't run a game system by pulling an adventure out of my ass, then it's dead to me already.

The boy picked two characters to run with - the Human Cleric and the Dwarf Fighter.

The pre-game ran really well - I liked the mechanics from what I saw. My big issue was with the characters themselves. The cleric was a laser cleric - pyu-pyu-pyu-ing all over the place. Okay, it's a different kind of cleric than in *my* D&D, I get that. Still, it felt funny.

What I REALLY did not like was the fact that the fighter could not miss. The fighter's Reaper feat meant that even with a miss, the fighter still did it's ability score modifier in damage - 3 hp in this case. That's melee AND ranged.

No. Nuh-uh. That is so wrong on so many levels. Do I really need to spell it out to WOTC? Do I need to explain how ridiculous that is?

Interestingly, those that I mentioned it to at the con had not noticed that little feature of the fighter.

One thing about DMing 4e for over two years taught me is to pay close attention to the rules. I mean, how can you bitch about something properly if you don't know what you are bitching about? :)

The Boy, however, absolutely LOVED the Laser Cleric and the Never-Missing Fighter.

So, the night before I attended a Con dedicated to old school gaming, I ran the D&D Next playtest. That, in itself, ishilarious. Well, to me, anyway.

Crazy-Ass Tim has detailed the adventure on his blog here. Go read. I'll wait.

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Okay, we're back.

4e Caves of Chaos - Pretty embarrassing eh?
What got me was how organic it felt - how natural and old-schooly. I think that WOTC 's decision to have the playtest use the original Cave of Chaos was quite smart, as it allows people like me to compare Next almost directly to my experiences with Basic and Advanced.

The Advantages/Disadvantages mechanic was fun and simple to implement. It was a little hard to think with, because for three decades, I've been translating what is going on at the table into percentages in my head - kind of like Neo does with swirly green characters in the Matrix. Calculating percentages with the 2d20 thing in Next is something I still haven't got down yet.

I play 'theater of the mind,' but movement needs to be looked at, I think. Being able to move before and after an action is great. It allows for wonderful sniping. But the absence of an opportunity attack leaves a lot of holes. I am not a big fan of the opportunity attack in 4e, mind you, but the characters have free range over the battlefield and can rush forward, attack, and rush back out of melee range time and time again. It's kind of an annoying little dance. I don't know what the solution for it is, though. Perhaps Disengage as a full action? I don't know.

I think one of the most surprising things is how Crazy-Ass Tim's fiancee reacted in the game. She's never played an RPG before. It frustrated her. Not the game mechanics. She got those right off the bat. She was frustrated with the other players themselves. I'm paraphrasing here, but she said something to the effect of "You guys are complete idiots who cannot think tactically on the battlefield to save your lives."
And she was right.

The halfling was too busy stealing stuff during combat to be useful. The wizard ran up to AN OGRE to get into melee range so that he could deliver a shock grasp - then was summarily pounded into the ground. Players stood motionless in the doorways of rooms full of archer goblins that were hiding behind overturned tables.

Two players were brought down under zero hit points. In OD&D, they would be flat out dead, and most likely, the whole thing would have been a TPK.

D&D Next is far more forgiving. Now whether that is a problem or not is a very subjective matter. But the hp inflation is not too bad, (I'm comparing to 4e) so making it more deadly would be a pretty simple house rule on the Death and Dying mechanics. So I don't see it as a problem. And, from what I've heard, WOTC is reworking hit points, so hopefully they'll reduce the safety net a bit more. Well, I would hope.

The at-will spells were a bit much for me too. I don't necessarily think that the low level magicians and clerics should be more combat effective, or even equal to, the fighters. Their power should be in having bizarre spells that create strange effect so that they have to use their imaginations to come up with nifty solutions to wacky problems. Not until they reach higher levels should they be as combat effective - casting spells like Remiehneppo's Thermonuclear Blast. Sorry, that's just how I roll.

Having four days of old school gaming right after than has let me contrast and compare a lot. Especially since I played OD&D with Tim Kask on Saturday. Comparing 5e with some real, honest to goodness 0e from the horse's mouth (or whatever part of the horse Tim represents,) has been enlightening. there is a lot to argue about, but I think that it all comes down to the point that the mechanics should not get in the way of the kind of game you want to play. If they do, then the game is broken - FOR YOU. It's a highly personal thing. You can fix it, or move on.

For me, the make-break for D&D Next will probably lie in character creation and ability advancement - specifically the Themes mechanic, and how spells are handled. Those are some pretty damn contentious areas. We'll see what happens.

So, after the session was over, I was packing up my things and thinking about the next game I'd be running in the same timeslot - Champions. Suddenly the players asked me a question.

"So when are we going to play this next?"

I was taken aback. We already had a whole host of things in our 'gaming queue' to get to. Gamer ADD is a harsh mistress.

"Again? Really?"

They nodded.

"Well, okay then, we can just continue with the Caves of Chaos in this same slot then," I chuckled.

Crap - I hope WOTC starts releasing playtest material faster. Otherwise, I just might have to pull out Labyrinth Lord. ;)

- Ark

Monday, June 11, 2012

NTRPG Con 2012 Loot


This year at NTRPGCON I was much more selective in my purchases, and significantly poorer, so they balanced one another out.  What I got away with was:

  • The Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game with the Limited-Edition Gold Foil Cover:  Squee!  I missed out on the pre-order, so I thought I'd miss out on this too, but it was sitting there at registration beckoning me.  Looking at the beta test materials last year, I knew I wanted this for the art alone, even if the game sucked.  However, I got to play it at last year's con with Harley Stroh, so I knew it was an awesome game.
  • Doom of the Savage King: Dungeon Crawl Classics module #66.5, by Harley Stroh.  This came in the big old black and gold telephone book for free - and isn't supposed to be available elsewhere.
  • The Adventurer Conqueror King System: This is the hardback.  Honestly, I wasn't planning on buying this.  But I saw it and, well, yeah.  It's such a pretty book with awesome art inside.  And and and . . . yeah.  I'm just an OSR slut.  Anyone want to play ACKS?
  • Spelljammer: Since Crazy-Ass Tim has turned our Second Edition AD&D game into a Spelljammer game, I figured - why not?  I might as well know something about the system.  This is the full original boxed set.  The dealer crammed in some other Spelljammer related material into the box as well, including Greyspace, so the thing was pretty damn well packed with stuff.
  • Hel:  I also picked up a print of Hel, from Diesel LaForce's Kickstarter project where he is redoing his old TSR work from Deities and Demigods, similar to what Jeff Dee is doing.  There is a little story with this that wouldn't be right to tell, I don't think, so I'll just keep my mouth shut and gloat all by myself.  If you see me smirking one day, it's probably about this.
  • B1 & S3:  Diesel LaForce had a box of old TSR stuff under his table that I saw and began to dig through.  Search of the Unknown and Expedition to the Barrier Peaks were both inside.  I lost my copies long ago, and had been looking for affordable copies.  They were both well worn, annotated, and cheap.  Now I'm beginning to wonder - was that Diesel's personal stash of old beat up TSR stuff he was getting rid of?  Crap.  I didn't even get him to sign them!
  • EPT Swag: When Doctor Victor Raymond ran us through the Empire of the Petal Throne game on Friday night, he gave us several handouts afterwards.  Lots of neat stuff.  But the kicker was a beautiful two sided, full color poster map of Tékumel.  It's completely awesome an Dr. Raymond is a very generous guy.
So, that's my fifth post about the con and I suppose I should give it a rest for at least a bit.  

I'd like to thank Doug and Mike and all the other staff and special guests for pulling off an amazing convention.  Oh, and the gamers too.  There was a complete absence of fuktards.  How many places can you say the same thing about?


- Ark

Sunday, June 10, 2012

NTRPG Con 2012 - Day Four

Circus Maximus on Thursday via JohnGaunt
I had a Red Bull for breakfast this morning. That one didn't take, so I had another.

Sundays are sleepy affairs at conventions - people staggering around nursing coffees and headaches. The Boy and I got back to the hotel in time to play in Jeff Dee's Quicksilver game.

Quicksilver is a 2d10 based game. I like the system. It is elegant and very simple - a perfect system to run at a con and detailed enough to be a used in a larger campaign. It's point buy with skills, so die-hard OD&Ders won't be happy - but then again, they've already got their game, don't' they? :)

I absolutely loved the critical successes and failures system, brought on by duplicate results with the roll of a the two ten-siders. It scales beautifully so that if you were good at something, the less critical failures you would have, and vice-versa - something that doesn't happen in d20 games that I've seen. And the crit results were great, and I definitely need to steal the Jeff's stuff for some of the systems I play.

We played with a great couple from Midland, Texas, where I used to live, and Zeb Cook. Zeb played a goblin who didn't know the rest of the party's language very well, so he was stuck communicating to us in only one syllable words. That's another great mechanic in the game, and I think particularly fun for cons.

I had gotten to talk to Zeb the day before of my bizarre history with second edition, and admitted that for two decades I wasn't very happy with him about the whole thing - and he had just smiled. :)

About halfway through the game, Crazy-Ass Jim (purestrainhuman) showed up finally to take part in the convention - mainly to buy stuff. After introducing him to Jeff Dee, I took a look over at Zeb.

Now, Crazy-Ass Tim was brought into D&D through Second Edition, and Zeb Cook has been a HUGE idol of his for a LONG time. But, of course, Tim had no idea what Zeb looked like.

Squealing Fangirls
So, with an evil gleam in my eye, I grabbed Tim, took him around the table, and introduced him point blank to Mr Cook.

I really wish I had a camera, because to see Crazy-Ass Tim, who is a sizable man, melt into a little squealing fangirl was just precious. I will laugh hysterically and rib him about it for decades to come. Again, NTRPGCON has paid for itself many times over.

It's the simple things in life, yanno?

You can read Crazy-Ass Tim's version of events at this post over on his blog, From the Ashes.

So anyway, we played the game and all survived. Quicksilver is a fun one. I'd recommend it.

I spent the rest of the time at the con talking to people until - especially another long session with David LaForce. Very cool dude. But, alas, Red Bull was wearing off, so The Boy and I drove home, where I promptly fell asleep on the couch.

Now, in these last four post outlining my adventures at NTRPGCON, I've done a lot of name-dropping. Please don't mistake that with some desire to make myself seem important. I'm just some schmo meeting my idols.

What I AM trying to impress upon you is that your idols are out there. The people who wrote the games that you love. The people who put that stamp upon your personality - that gaming bug - that will never go away. They are out there and they are going to these mini-cons around the world and they are wonderful people and they are approachable and will put up with you acting like squealing little fangirls.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

GET THEE TO A CONVENTION.

I certainly have no regrets. :)

- Ark